A PEDESTRIAN-PROTECTING AIR BAG ARRANGEMENT AND A METHOD OF FOLDING AND STORING A PEDESTRIAN-PROTECTING AIR BAG ARRANGEMENT

A pedestrian-protecting air bag arrangement is disclosed for a motor vehicle having a bonnet pivoted at a forward end for pivoting upwardly and forwardly. The arrangement comprises an air bag located beneath the bonnet adjacent a rear end thereof, and designed, in its deployed state, to extend across the width of the vehicle windscreen and upwardly at least partially over the windscreen, the air bag comprising a central region and lateral wings on either side of the central region. In order to ensure correctly sequenced behavior of the air bag when activated, the bag is packed in such a way that, in the pre-deployed, stowed state, the lateral wings of the air bag are folded or rolled towards the central region, to lie beneath the central region, whereby the folded lateral regions are locked initially by the central region of the air bag when the latter is inflated, but become unlocked as the central region of the bag inflates, allowing the lateral regions also to inflate to extend over the windscreen and the A-pillars.